Nicky Gumbel
Nicky Gumbel is vicar of Holy Trinity Brompton, a Church of England church in central London. He studied law at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1973-1975, and practised as a barrister from 1977-1983.
In 1983, he went to Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, to read theology (M.A. Cantab, M.A. Oxon) and to train for ordination in the Church of England. He joined Holy Trinity Brompton as curate to Sandy Millar in 1986. He took over the running of Holy Trinity Brompton's Alpha course - a practical introduction to the Christian faith - in October 1990. The course grew rapidly and attracted wide interest. The first Alpha conference was held at Holy Trinity in May 1993 and in 1996 the Bishop of London appointed Nicky as an 'Alpha Chaplain'.
More than 197,000 church leaders have been trained to run Alpha courses, which are now running in 156 countries. There are over 7,000 courses running in the UK and over 31,000 world-wide. 80% of the prisons in the UK are now running Alpha. An estimated 9 million people have completed the course world-wide. In 1998, Alpha extended an ‘invitation to the nation’, inviting the whole of the UK to attend an Alpha course. Similar national initiatives took place in 1999-2005 and another is set to take place during September 2006. Sir David Frost presented a 10-part series on Alpha for ITV in autumn 2001.
Nicky Gumbel has written several books. Questions of Life - the Alpha course in book form - was published in 1993 and contains the complete set of Alpha course talks. It was declared ‘Christian Book of the Year 1994' at the Christian Booksellers' Convention and has reprinted 26 times. The evangelistic booklet Why Jesus? and its sister publication Why Christmas? have sold more than four million copies.
Nicky speaks regularly at national and international Alpha conferences. He is married to Pippa. They live in central London and have three children, Henry, Jonathan and Rebecca.
